Tiiiime to upgrade the current HTPC to a sleek, more-advanced, more-efficient son of a gun with the new parts that will be available within a month or two. Can you believe that it will be here that fast? Haswell is right around the corner! With Haswell, we have new IGPs (Integrated Graphics Processor) which Intel claims to be 2-3x faster than last-gen IGPs. Add to that even more performance-per-clock and better energy efficiency (I hope). Of course the temps will be a little better with said energy efficiency. Wooooh!!

The rumors I've heard say that GT3 and GT3e graphics will not be available on the socketed CPUs. Since only GT3 and GT3e have 40 execution units, and the GT2 that will be available for socketed CPUs has only 20 execution units, I would not expect a large increase in IGP performance over Ivy Bridge (GT2 = 16 EUs) if you are going to use a socketed Haswell CPU.

It appears there will be R-version CPUs with the GT3e graphics, but they are BGA-only (not socketed). Possibly you might be able to buy a motherboard / CPU combo with an R-version CPU already soldered on. This is breaking new ground for Intel, as Intel slowly executes their plan to cut down on socketed CPUs, so it is hard to say at this point what will be available.

I am really hoping there will be -R version thin mini-ITX motherboards. Please, please, please.

There are -R versions of AMD Trinity ("eTrinity") but I haven't been able to find any mini-ITX motherboards other than some ridiculous Kontron ones I was quote for $450 (dual-core) to $600 (quad-core) each. I don't think so.

It looks like Intel HD Graphics 4600 (GT2) is still a lot slower than AMD Trinity (no wonder, 16 EUs in Intel HD Graphics 4000 vs 20 EUs in 4600, only 25% increase). Intel Iris (Pro) graphics 5200 (GT3/GT3e) has 40 EUs and may be equivalent to the fastest Trinity A10-5400K, but available only in SoC models ("U series") without PCI Express x16 lanes (so no chance of adding a discrete graphics, that's the main reason why GT3/GT3e are implemented only in U series).

But the number of EUs has almost nothing to do with PQ in video playback. It's video processing algorithms and hardware to execute them that matters. Most of Intel's video playback algorithms are done in not EUs but ASICs (application-specific ICs). So PQ may be more or less the same as the current SNB / IVB, unless Intel implements new algorithms in the driver. (MadVR's best algorithms are out of question in Haswell anyway.)

There are a couple of things we want to see in Haswell related to video playback:

- Precise 23.976Hz. Hopefully Haswell is a lot better than SNB/IVB.
- Full-range RGB output support (perhaps we shouldn't expect this considering the current status of the driver)
- 4K UHD support (via DP 1.2, up to 60Hz) is a nice addition. But ASICs in Haswell are good enough to upscale SD/HD film/video to 4K UHD in its best algorithm (Lanczos)?

Other points to consider are:

1. There is a USB 3.0 bug in the 8 series chipsets C1-stepping. Motherboards with C2-stepping chipsets that fixes the bug are available only in late August - early September.
2. Only quad-core processors ($175-) are released in June. Dual-core processors are available in September.

I am looking forward to this new chip because I am tired of AMD drivers. I was an AMD supporter for a long time, but they slowly wore me down. I hope to find a BGA micro ATX or ATX board (want a full sized board if possible). If not, then I go socketed.

A lap around Haswell media: There are lots of improvements and new features, but not many of them are purely HTPC-related. Personally I am interested in Frame Rate Conversion.

What's new for Haswell media:

Let's look at each critically.

MFX (Multi-Format Codec; hardware decoder / encoder)

- SVC support: for, for example, multi-party video conference across different devices, no direct relation to HTPC.
- MJPEG decode: good for a low power system, but..
- MPEG2 encode: for example, good for low power DVD creation, no direct relation to HTPC of course.
- Improved Quick Sync encoder: nice if you use this encoder to shorten encoding time.

Video Processing

The following two look interesting in video playback:

- Smooth Video through Frame Rate Conversion: I am not sure which this is equivalent to, madVR's Smooth Motion FRC or SVP (Smooth Video Project). If it works, it will be nice anyway. (But I would like to see improved 23.976Hz first.)

- Gamut Expansion: Something new.

- Skin Tone Tuned Image Enhancement: If you like this type of image enhancements, this will be nice. (Personally I never turn it on.)

Both Sandybridge and Ivybridge works well in my HTPC's so I see no reason to upgrade. Is there a benefit that I may not be aware of?

David

Nope. You're not missing anything. ES chips have already been benchmarked and we've seen Haswell is providing a pitiful increase in performance with no improvements in temps. Intel regularly makes 10% jumps in performance across the board between generations and the Gen3 to Gen4 jump is only 3~5% with almost not useful feature enhancements or additions. Since Intel chips typically stay at the same price until they are at least 3 generations old I would only recommend Haswell to people building new. If you're running Sandy/Ivy there is no reason to upgrade.

Nope. You're not missing anything. ES chips have already been benchmarked and we've seen Haswell is providing a pitiful increase in performance with no improvements in temps. Intel regularly makes 10% jumps in performance across the board between generations and the Gen3 to Gen4 jump is only 3~5% with almost not useful feature enhancements or additions. Since Intel chips typically stay at the same price until they are at least 3 generations old I would only recommend Haswell to people building new. If you're running Sandy/Ivy there is no reason to upgrade.

My feelings exactly. If your Sandy/Ivy or AMD Trinity HTPC is running well then it's probably better to skip a generation to get any real advantage.

- Smooth Video through Frame Rate Conversion: I am not sure which this is equivalent to, madVR's Smooth Motion FRC or SVP (Smooth Video Project). If it works, it will be nice anyway. (But I would like to see improved 23.976Hz first.)

The slide says "motion estimation and motion compensation to interpolate the missing frames", that's not what MadVR is doing (it's not doing any motion estimation/compensation) but is what SVP and the "120Hz" mode on LCD TVs do.

The thing about Haswell that I'm most interested in is the direction Intel is taking with low power states.

About a 90% decrease in minimum power requirements. PSU manufacturers appear to be lining up to follow suit. The more i/o they move into the PCH (or cpu) the better. Motherboard manufacturers don't really have any incentive or market to cater to in this regard, so as long as they are in charge of the design they'll take the quicker/cheaper way out which results in unnecessary power consumption. The more control Intel has of the i/o the more energy efficient it will become since they are trying so hard to make a splash in the mobile/embedded systems world.

I truly hope that NAND prices continue to plummet as well, then my overarching dream that my next server iteration could be capable of 1W idle would be that much closer to reality. Still a ways off, but it would be nice to have the grunt of a Xeon with the idle of a A6

The thing about Haswell that I'm most interested in is the direction Intel is taking with low power states.

The increased power efficiency is what interests me too. Not so much for an HTPC since my new 17w TDP Celeron NUC does just fine for me in that regard (and having zero interest in 3D or gaming, I don't feel like I really need anything more performance-wise). But I am currently in the market for a good Win 8 ultrabook convertible and I've heard that the Haswell versions coming out should be able to increase battery life on those from around 4-6 hrs (real world) with the current ivy bridge chips to 8-10+ hours to be on par with your better android tablets today.

Can anyone who knows the technology better than me verify if that should be the case? As is it I'm planning on waiting but if the increase in battery life is going to be a lot more modest than that or if the expected price point of the Haswell versions is going to be half again more what they are today then I may not bother.

Can anyone who knows the technology better than me verify if that should be the case? As is it I'm planning on waiting but if the increase in battery life is going to be a lot more modest than that or if the expected price point of the Haswell versions is going to be half again more what they are today then I may not bother.

It's probably not going to be the case because laptop manufacturers all have their head firmly planted you*know*where

Some rantings . . .

The new MBP could be seeing 30% more battery life, but instead we are given a "thinner" design

Hard to give Apple too much grief since they are one of the only makers to even care about battery life

Truly innovative solutions like the Sony "sheet" battery addon don't seem to stick and are written off as "not what the consumers want"

Same with nearly all mobile electronics . . . we've been given very few limited options in regards to high battery life

Outside the rant, the architecture improvement is still snailing it's way towards overall efficiency. It would be interesting to see if they bring the NIC into the PCH with haswell, since they'd be quite close to a SoC design much like ARM. As for day to day CPU usage, without a fab size drop I thought it would have been hard to squeak out more grunt for the same power but lately every generation tends to use 10-15% less power for the same tasks.

As for how much battery life savings you'll see in real life, I'd guess that it will be slim. Even if they could get you a couple extra hours, the manufacturer will probably try to shave a quarter inch off the design and reduce your overall battery size to the same target hours they've been shooting for

As for how much battery life savings you'll see in real life, I'd guess that it will be slim. Even if they could get you a couple extra hours, the manufacturer will probably try to shave a quarter inch off the design and reduce your overall battery size to the same target hours they've been shooting for

Well that would be disappointing. But now that you mention it I guess I wouldn't be too surpised if that's the direction they go with it. To me, adding a couple hours battery life to make an ultrabook more like a tablet in that regard would go a lot further towards making it truly portable than shaving another quarter inch or quarter pound off the design. The ivy bridge convertibles on the market today are already under 3 lbs (for the 11.6" versions and not much over in most cases for the 13.3"). So how is that not compact enough for anyone who's already decided they want the productive capacity of a laptop over a tablet?

I don't know. I have to remember on stuff like this that I may not be the typical consumer. I just hope when these Haswell versions start hitting the market that there's at least some variety offered. But we'll see I guess.

Thats because Haswell can use so little power in its idle states that some PSUs have issues providing it. However this is only a problem if you don't have any other consumers on that rail, so if you have a single-rail PSU and a GPU with dedicated power connected as well, it will never be a problem really.

"While we are still working with Intel on the details of the testing methodology they use to check PSUs for Haswell compatibility, it is already known that a power supply that uses DC to DC for the non-primary rails (the +3.3V and +5V) will not have an issue with the new low power sleep states. This is because a DC to DC buck converter is used to convert +12V to +3.3V and +5V. This means that no matter what load the CPU puts on the power supply, there will always be a load on the +12V because the +12V is required to provide power to +3.3V and +5V."

The input to a picoPSU is DC so it's converting DC-to-DC for the other rails.

This is also true of the power supplies in the Realan and IWill cases.

Are you sure about that? Everything I read says that they're not talking about the main 12V rail but the dedicated CPU 12V2, which wouldn't be affected by other components.

Thats why single-rail is important, so that all 12V sources come from the same rail. Of course its hard to answer how every single PSU is built, if they call it single-rail and still have the CPU on another one, or what.

But anyway, i would buy a new PSU that is marked compatible no matter what, if i didn't have a Seasonic already which was certificed.

"While we are still working with Intel on the details of the testing methodology they use to check PSUs for Haswell compatibility, it is already known that a power supply that uses DC to DC for the non-primary rails (the +3.3V and +5V) will not have an issue with the new low power sleep states. This is because a DC to DC buck converter is used to convert +12V to +3.3V and +5V. This means that no matter what load the CPU puts on the power supply, there will always be a load on the +12V because the +12V is required to provide power to +3.3V and +5V."

The input to a picoPSU is DC so it's converting DC-to-DC for the other rails.

This is also true of the power supplies in the Realan and IWill cases.

Now bring on the thin mini-ITX embedded Haswell boards!

Can we be 100% sure about this? I do not want to grab a Haswell to be put on the chopping block for all of you, but not have it work because of the lack of 0.5 amps! Yes, for all of you! I am upgrading my HTPC to Haswell to be your guinea pig. Any questions that you have will be considered.